At the recently held Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2020 in Las Vegas, US, Samsung revealed ‘Ballie’, a personalised companion that understands and assists humans and their family, including pets.
Interestingly, though, over six months before Samsung revealed their human companion, one of our own, a Hyderabad-based engineer named P.V.N. Karthikeya had created a similar AI-based companion called ‘Bubble’.
Only, Karthikeya introduced Bubble as a character for his 28-minute short film, Supreme. In the film, which released through Wide Angle Pictures on YouTube last year, Bubble is seen helping a scientist called Senapathi with his research and domestic chores.
Robotic wonders
Karthikeya had started working on his short film in January 2018 and completed it by the year-end, before releasing it in June 2019. While his engineering and VFX prowess around Bubble in supreme left many a viewer wonder-struck, Ballie’s release earlier this month left Karthikeya speechless.
“My teammates and I were taken aback after seeing Ballie, wondering how it could be possible that we came up with something as similar and so much before them,” states an ecstatic Karthikeya who is clearly looking at his capabilities and potential anew.
Incidentally, the idea of human companion came to Karthikeya between 2013 and 2017, way before even Bubble in 2018. He had put across the very idea for his college project work at the Madras Institute Technology, Anna University, in Chennai. As an engineering student, Karthikeya had tinkered with his own idea of creating a robot.
“In my final-year project, wanting to do something new, I decided to create a rescue robot. The idea grew from the thought that a rescue robot can help us when a natural disaster strikes by finding people stuck in the debris. I submitted my project to the college, but because they lacked funds, they couldn’t create the robot,” says Karthikeya, who completed his engineering graduation in May 2017.
At home with creativity
After completing his engineering course, Karthikeya headed back home to Hyderabad and grew interested in films.
“So I began working on a short film, which I worked on solely for nearly 2,000 hours. The concept, story, script and the dialogues were all written by me,” he says. Just as we wonder if in the future he plans to invent more AI-based paraphernalia or just stories for movies, Karthikeya says, “I am narrating some scripts to a couple of Tollywood producers, some of whom are very positive about my stories.”
Better still, there is even a chance that Karthikeya will soon make his directorial debut in Tollywood.
